thats realy wierd then bc my dads truck takes longer to stop than mine but w/e idc i like my truck as is thanks for the info

 

it probably has something else to do with the system too.

 

the discs on the new ones are bigger and the drums are pretty big too. The tire rack says that 15s wont even fit over them, but i ve seen 15s on older dax. That tells me that the new brakes are bigger and therefore stop better, disc or no

 

They probably had no choice but to make the brakes bigger...the truck is much bigger than the Gen IIs. My guess is they went above and beyond the performance of the Gen IIs to keep competitive in terms of stopping distance.

 

I m happy w my brakes so far

 

me too, they even stop my heavy trailer loads supprizingly well

 

Actually Drum brakes offer better stopping torque than disc brakes of similar diameter. Friction surface area anddiameter arethe important factor. Drums have excellent surface area compared to discs. Look at the size of a shoe compared to a disc pad. Where disc brakes are better is their cooling ability. Because of the nature of drums they like to hold heat and fade quickly. For Single stops drum brakes are usually better. It's when you get into repeated high speed stops that you need discs (ie road racing).

As for cost. The biggest issue with rear discs on trucks (and cars for that matter but not as important because GVW is not as high) is the park brake system. Integral disc parking brakes like most cars use do not have enough pad surface area to sufficiently hold a truck on a 30% grade at GVW (unless you go to a real soft pad compound and you can't do that with a survice brake for many reasons but the major one is pad wear). So the solution is to add a drum-in-hat park brake. Essintially it is a smaller drum brake inside the hat section of the disc brake. The friction compound can be very soft because it is only used parking and not (often) used for dynamic stops. This is part of the reason why discs are more expensive than drums, because you need to have a disc brake system and a drum system together whereas with drums you only need that.

Not for a disc rear upgrade, the Ram 1500 uses the same rear end as the Dakota. Some research would have to be done WRT the distance between the brake adaptor surface and the axle flange. If they are the same then you should be able to just bolt them on. If they are not then you'd be SOL. Aftter you confimed that they are the same then you have to go into deatil researching MC sizes and proportioning valve characteristics. But that can all be adapted if it comes to it. Plus you would also need custom park brake cables.

 

I was considering the Ram 1500 rear end. Just the calipers though, cuz the rotors on those are significantly larger than what we currently have.

I've been tossing the idea around quite a bit.